


Recovery

by Fallynleaf



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Asexual Kate Marsh, Bay over Bae, F/F, Femslash February, First Kiss, Past Max/Chloe, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 02:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6138580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallynleaf/pseuds/Fallynleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of the week, Max and Kate are both still reeling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recovery

Neither Max nor Kate talked a lot during their first tea date after Kate got discharged from the hospital. They mostly just sat together, hot steam billowing up from their teacups, and took solace in the fact that at least they had each other.

Max cried a bit when she told Kate about Chloe. Kate reached out and took her hand. Squeezed it tight. She didn't say anything, but just her presence, the solid reality of her, reminded Max that whatever else she might regret, at least she'd saved one person.

And she'd saved Kate on her own, without her powers.

"It'll get better, eventually," Kate reassured her.

"Thanks," Max said. "Right back at you."

Kate smiled. It lingered a bit longer than her last smile.

They were both getting better at that whole smiling thing. They still had a ways to go, but that's what recovery was like. Each day you make it through, it gets a little easier.

 

* * *

 

It helped a bit when Max focused on the things that she _could_ do, like helping other people in small ways. She befriended some of the people she'd gotten to know a bit better during her week of apocalyptic time-traveling adventures.

Victoria was a bit of a trickier case, but Max was determined to improve their relationship. With people like Jefferson out there in the world, why waste time being petty enemies when they could be friends and allies instead?

So Max invited Victoria to her next tea date with Kate. And yeah, maybe she used Kate to guilt Victoria into it, but it was for the good of everyone involved, so Max didn't waste time feeling too guilty about it. She had less time to waste now, after all.

It started off kind of awkward, and ended kind of still awkward, but Max thought it went about as well as it could. It helped that all three of them genuinely wanted things to be better.

Nothing filled the Chloe-sized hole in Max's life, though.

And grief... grief was a bitch.

 

* * *

 

There were some things Max hadn't told anyone. Even besides the whole I-have-superpowers thing. She wanted to talk about Chloe, _keep her memory alive_ or whatever, but that was hard when a lot of her most important memories of Chloe hadn't even happened in this timeline.

"I kissed her," Max told Kate, once, when they were hanging out in Max's room. Max took a breath. "Chloe, I mean. I kissed her before she died."

Kate was silent. Stunned. Belatedly, Max realized that she had effectively just came out to Kate, and she hadn't really thought much about how Kate might react.

"Were you in love with her?" Kate asked. Her expression was unreadable.

"I loved Chloe," Max said. "But I waited too damn long to do anything about it. I never thought I'd run out of time. _Shit_ , I'm an idiot." She scrubbed at her face, clearing away a few tears. She was fucking tired of crying.

"You didn't know, Max," Kate said.

"I thought I could save her," Max said.

Kate wrapped an arm around her, and Max felt a bit relieved. That had to mean that Kate was okay with it, right?

"Have you ever been in love with anyone else?" Kate asked.

"I've had crushes on people," Max said. "But never... never anything like this. I wanted... I was ready to be with her forever." It sounded so stupid, like some sort of lovesick cliché, but that's the only way she knew how to describe it.

Max needed to stop thinking about Chloe. "How about you?" she asked. Halfway through the question, she remembered that celibacy was kind of a big deal to Kate. "Um, I mean, uh..." She tried to backpedal.

"It's okay, Max," Kate said. "I've had crushes before. I think."

"You _think_?" Max asked.

"I mean, I've never... wanted to, y'know," Kate said.

"Have sex?" Max filled in bluntly.

"Yeah. That." Kate sighed. "I've thought about kissing people before, though. Wondered what it's like. Since I don't remember it at all."

"Wait," Max said. "Are you asexual?"

Kate looked at her blankly. "What's that?" she asked.

"Asexual. It means you don't experience sexual attraction," Max explained. All of the time she'd spent looking up gay stuff on the internet was finally paying off.

"There's a word for that?" Kate asked.

"Yep."

Kate sat in silence for a moment, taking that in.

"I guess maybe I am," she said. "If that's what it's called. Asexual." She tried the word out, saying it slowly, hesitantly.

"That probably helps make the celibacy thing extra easy for you, huh?" Max asked.

Kate bristled a bit, at that. "That's not why I think celibacy is important, Max."

"Sorry," Max said. "I know that's not why it's important. I'm just trying to say that maybe that's part of why other people struggle with it more than you." She took a breath. "Kate, a lot of things come pretty easy for you that the rest of us have more trouble with. Like religion."

"Max... even for me, it's not always easy to believe in religion," Kate said. She leaned back, staring vaguely out the window instead of looking at Max. "I have doubts, sometimes, too. Periods of darkness."

"Yeah, but you always come back to it. You never lose your dedication, Kate."

"Thanks," she said. "That means a lot to me. Even though it's not true. I do lose my dedication sometimes, Max."

"Hey, nobody's perfect," Max said. She took Kate's hand and just held onto her for a while. The touchy-feely aspect to their friendship was pretty new, but Max really liked it, and she got the impression that Kate did, too.

 

* * *

 

At some point, it started to develop into full-blown cuddling. Not all the time, and definitely not when they were in public, but when they were just hanging out and watching a movie, personal space kind of became irrelevant.

The movies were more of Max's thing, but Kate enjoyed them on occasion, and besides, it was a bit of a tradeoff for the time that Max spent going to church with Kate.

_That_ had started because Kate had been too nervous to go to church after the whole roof incident, so Max, knowing how important it was to Kate, had offered to go with her if that would help. It did. Then Max kind of just kept going after that. She still wasn't really religious, but sitting through the sermon wasn't too bad, and if it made Kate happy, it was worth it.

They didn't cuddle at church. Sometimes, Max would hold Kate's hand if something in the sermon seemed to be dredging up bad feelings, but that was it.

Maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise that Max started to fall in love with her.

But Max didn't have the greatest track record of recognizing her own feelings in time to do anything about them, so honestly, she should've seen this one coming.

Should've figured it out when all of her journal entries started to be about Kate. When just seeing Kate sitting in the classroom, or walking through the halls, made everything seem a bit brighter.

At least with Chloe, Max had been pretty sure that Chloe was into women. But Kate? Max was pretty sure that she wasn't. Definitely not sexually, but probably not romantically, either.

So the happy-butterflies feelings developed into pining.

"What's wrong, Max?" Kate asked, one day.

They were sitting on the bed in Kate's room. Normally, Max would be cuddling with her, but now, as much as she wanted to, it felt kind of weird. Like she'd be violating Kate's trust, or something.

"Nothing," Max said. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not," Kate said flatly. "Is it... is it because you're mad at me?'

"No! I'm not mad at you, Kate," Max said.

"Then why have you been avoiding me?" Kate asked.

Max hadn't been. At least, not intentionally. "It's not you, Kate," she said, turning away. "It's me."

"What's wrong?" Kate repeated. "Whatever it is, you don't have to be afraid to tell me."

_Yeah, I do_ , Max thought. _I don't want to lose you_. But of course, that only made her think about how she'd run out of time with Chloe. How if only she'd said something earlier. If only she had not lost contact with Chloe. If she'd made a different choice and had Chloe alive with her here, and everyone else dead.

" _Fuck_ ," Max said. "I... I'm sorry." She stood up, trying to sort through her thoughts, find something to say.

"I know it's probably hard for you, after losing Chloe," Kate said quietly. "I don't want to pressure you into moving on when you're not ready. But—" she cut off.

Max stared at her. Her heart was pounding confusedly in her chest.

"But I really like you, Max," Kate continued. "And I'm... I'm sorry if you don't feel the same way."

"No, Kate, I do! I really do," Max whispered. "I just‒ I thought you wouldn't‒"

"Feel the same?" Kate asked.

"Yeah," Max said.

"Oh," Kate said, relieved. "I've never really, um, flirted with anyone before, so I didn't know if it was all in my head, or if we were actually heading somewhere."

Max smiled. "I think we were in the same boat." She looked at Kate, and Kate was looking at her, and Max's heart was still pounding, only now it was for a different reason.

"So, um..." Kate said.

"Can I kiss you?" Max asked. "It's okay if you don't want to—"

"Yes, Max," Kate interrupted.

"Are you sure? I mean—"

"Please just do it, Max," Kate said. In the pink-orange afternoon light, Max could tell that Kate was blushing.

Max was blushing, too. She sat down beside Kate again. They stared at each other for a minute. Then Max remembered what she was supposed to be doing. She started to lean closer, and Kate's eyelids fluttered closed.

The kiss was soft. Tentative.

It was so different from the kiss Max had shared with Chloe, but that's fine, because that kiss had been a world-ending kiss. It had been _I love you_ and _goodbye_ , full of desperation and passion.

This one was a beginning kiss. A hopeful promise, maybe. And that's what both Max and Kate needed right now.

Afterward, Max leaned her forehead against Kate's and shared breaths with her for a moment. "Is this okay?" Max asked after they separated, still hesitant.

Kate nodded. "I still don't want to have sex, but I do want— I want this," she said decidedly.

"I'm glad," Max said. "Because I want this, too. Sex or no sex."

Kate smiled, and Max smiled back.

Thinking about Chloe still hurt, and some part of Max felt guilty for trying to move on, but she knew that Chloe would want her to be happy. Chloe would want her sacrifice to be meaningful.

And maybe, this relationship with Kate would give Max the courage to tell her the full story about Chloe, about her powers, about _all_ of it.


End file.
